I don't agree with the previous winners not having to dance early rounds. I think we discussed that (or started to discuss it) in the Blackpool thread. And it would certainly be fun to discuss it some more.

I'm just saying that, strictly from the perspective of keeping heat sizes manageable, it makes sense.

They could always divide up the heats and require everyone to dance. To me,that would be much more fair.

Actually, its not really enough dancers to make any significant difference to the heat sizes. Lets suppose 12 couples get byes. If they start with 256 couples its possibly one extra heat; with 240 couples its no difference at all.

Still owe a google on the floor size thing. I'm putting it off because I don't think there's any one answer. I suspect the regs vary from comp to comp or at the very least, one governing organization to another. That's a lot of googling.

I wonder how much comp organizers consider floor size when they write up heat lists.

Sometimes - maliciously.

My favorite was when they split the floor in half and then put 7 pre-championship senior I couples (us); 5 under 15 championship juniors and, to sweeten the pot, one open amateur smooth couple on the same half. It was more a question of survival than dancing; the wors thing was worrying that you were going to step on a kid - we are very tall!

Actually, DP came into his own - danced rings round everyone - I think we were the only couple that could really lead-follow. Best result we ever had

I can't imagine what they hoped to accomplish by doing that -- other than keeping on schedule at everyone's expense. sheesh.

I actually wondered if there was something to be said in favor of it. I mean why should a dance compettion be on a floor designed for gymnastics with a homogeneous set of dancers? One of hte arts of partnerdance that we always extol is the ability to deal with the unexpected - to dance with grace and artistry despite the mayhem around you. For sure, there is a factor of this in all comps (it peaks at pre-championship where everyone is doing complex steps at great speed but noone has learned to navigate the floor yet!) but perhaps it should get morr, not less challenging as you become more skill ful.

One way to achieve this and mix things up a bit so that competitions are much-of-a-muchness is to make the judges a part of the dance floor - make them free to wander over the floor rather than stand on the bylines. At first we might loose a few but eventually the dancers would have an extra aspect of competition opportunity, how to show off when the competition is terrified to move...

OK, its a crazy idea but I think there is something in it nonetheless...

My standard coaches had a workshop on floorcraft moons ago. So basically the exercise is to have a few couples on the floor, but change the "shape" of the floor, and to spice it up, having people wondering on the floor. I remembered being surrounded by 4 people from 4 corners (gosh, these evil evil teammies ;-D). On a side note, this is one of the reason why I thought that there are really advance group lessons - these kind of things could not be done in a private setting, and from what my coach said, she learned it when she was in Championship level back in the day.

My standard coaches had a workshop on floorcraft moons ago. So basically the exercise is to have a few couples on the floor, but change the "shape" of the floor, and to spice it up, having people wondering on the floor. I remembered being surrounded by 4 people from 4 corners (gosh, these evil evil teammies ;-D). On a side note, this is one of the reason why I thought that there are really advance group lessons - these kind of things could not be done in a private setting, and from what my coach said, she learned it when she was in Championship level back in the day.

What fantastic coaches! The place you do not want to be learning these skills is during your first open-level competition. Which is where we did! And there is nosubstitute for actually doing it. You should have so much practise that it becomes automatic. To reach that the lead has to develop a few effective escape moves and the follow has to have them so programmed that they are executed perfectly whatever the circumstances. I wonder how many comps have been lost because the couple did not know how to negotiate out of a tight situation...